How to get started with your small business blog

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We have all read blogs and wondered whether we could do that. But, if the concept of starting your small business blog terrifies you then here are some simple ways to get started.

Learn the experience of small business owners at the Waterloo Regional Small Business Centre – Blogging Made Easy workshop. Then download the four simple exercises to practice yourself.

5 tasks to complete before you start writing

Do a brainstorming session answering the following questions.

  1. Identify your audience – to what question is your buyer personas seeking an answer.
  2. Chose a topic – what content will your buyer personas find valuable.
  3. Identify keywords – we trust the information we find ourselves, so help your customer find it by specifying a keyword
  4. Chose a catchy title – draw your audience into your post and make sure it is less than 64 characters in length
  5. Identify the Call-To-Action – if your reader has invested three minutes reading your post, just closing the browser afterward is a terrible loss. Provide them with a call-to-action to other relevant content on your website.
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“Big words actually make you appear less credible and confident,” notes the HubSpot Academy

“Never in a million years, would I have thought that I would ever write a blog post. Now I am excited to go home and write my first,” remarked Diane Knowles.

The Waterloo Regional Small Business Centre provides many workshop events to help the 30,000 small business in the Waterloo Region. [Stats Can 2016]. A blog is a familiar term to the business owners attending this workshop, yet they were uncertain just how to get started.

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Build confidence with these content exercises

  1. Textual content often referred to as copy. Aim for 350 words. Publish nothing without checking spelling and grammar using Grammarly and readability using Hemingway App. This post is 428 words at a grade 8 level.
  2. Photographic content that you have taken on your smartphone or obtained from royalty free image libraries like Unsplash. Using images downloaded from Google is not acceptable.
  3. Quotes from your connections or other credited sources such as an annual report.
  4. Video obtained using your smartphone. See this post on creating great blog quality video in under 20-minutes.

Download these four simple content exercise

The instructions for the exercises covering written text, photography, quotes and video will help you make a substantial start. Then practice over and over to become a proficient inbound journalist.

TRY THese 4 SIMPLE CONTENT EXERCISES

Video courtesy of Jeanette Thompson. This is a joint post by the small business owners that attended the March 20 workshop. Thank you for your help. Nice job!